Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
NASA seeks proposals for a spacecraft meant to safely deorbit the ISS (nasa.gov)
17 points by geox 8 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 18 comments



Outfit it with all sorts of Radio communication gear as a single large Geo-Stationary satellite platform while also outfitting it for space and earth facing telescopes and such for observations and additional science related sensor packages. And have a large Space tug/station keeping module attached to haul that up to synchronous orbit and keep that there for decades/longer.

So the The entire Space station could be outfitted with Xeon Gas storage tanks for station keeping usage and other gases for the instrument packages and that utilized for whatever needs that.

Another option is to take individual modules off and make smaller platforms for more global coverage and make more individual platforms for smaller individual Geo-synchronous orbital platforms.

One other option is reconfigure that as one giant deep space probe powered by Xenon Thrusters and slap some space nuclear reactor in that and loads of deep space antennas there and observation equipment and use an initial chemical rocket to get that up to escape velocity before that cuts out and the Xenon thrusters are engaged.

And one question, are all the modules on the Current ISS past their usable lifecycle and are no longer useful for any new station construction?


The ISS weighs 450 metric tons. If Starship actually works, it could launch the same mass in 3 trips.

Maybe we could raise it to a graveyard orbit, as a historical artifact?


Do we really need a 450 ton, huge piece of uncontrolled metal orbiting around us? I know asteroids and "moons" are uncontrolled too. But those are unavoidable while this is man made. I think we have more things to preserve on earth than a metal object in space. It's done its work, we learnt a lot from it, now it's time to say good bye.


The ISS is a symbol of international peace and collaboration.

In a time where tensions are increasing and everybody abandons nuclear disarmament treaties, it seems like a good idea to keep it as a reminder that an end of the cold war was possible and what we can achieve as friends not as enemies.


How things are going, I doubt anyone will care when they press the big red switch, while reading the launch codes.

Maybe as a monument to whoever finds what remains of the planet afterwards.


Doomsaying is not a sexy look.

If it could help, it's worth the effort to at least try, otherwise why bother doing anything.


And the statue of Liberty, Holocaust memorial and hundreds of other monuments signifying Nazism, racism, wars etc etc which are visible everyday and are here on earth for people to see, visit, didn't change a single damn thing in the minds of people. We don't need heavy metal junk orbiting which cannot be seen by anyone unless they have specialized equipment for us to remember we can achieve peace.


Please try imagining how unfathomably vast space is, and how stable certain orbits can be.


Yeah earth was vast enough but our species didn't take much time to garbage it entirely. Like does it have any real purpose other than just orbiting?


I don't think there is a serious risk of filling up useless orbits with $150,000,000,000 objects.

And it's not just orbiting, it's orbiting with style.


I know I will get downvotes, but seems like a a symbol of the decline of America. Or rise of China? (It will soon have the only space station)

Then again, maybe it just wasn’t a good idea to have a space station in the first place. But for the cost of sending the materials that far, it seems like it would be worth while to tow the thing into a lunar orbit. There it might be useful. It just cost so much!


This is dumb. They should auction it off on the condition that the winner boost it to a higher orbit where it can eventually become a museum.

An Earth-Mars cycler would be interesting too but something tells me it’s probably in entirely the wrong orbit to be sent into that kind of trajectory without crazy delta-V.


Please dock a SpaceX StarShip to it, and move everything that can be moved over. Bring it all down because even for forgotten experiment from the 1990's is worth looking at.

Then deorbit it.


They gotta put cameras everywhere when they do deorbit it. I wanna see everything burning and blowing up.


They should atleast see what they can get for it on eBay first


Wasn't there back then a group of people who wanted to buy the Mir space station?


Does eBay have a Billionaires section for that sort of item!


https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=the&_sacat=0&...

That searches for "the" including the description. Not sure if a better filter exists.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: